Saint María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa (Mama Antula)

María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa was born in 1730 in Villa Silípica, Santiago del Estero, in today's Argentina. As a young woman she consecrated herself to God with a private vow, added "de San José" to her name, and worked with the Jesuits, who led the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. The Quechua-speaking people she served called her "Mama Antula", a tender form of "Mother Antonia".

When King Charles III expelled the Jesuits in 1767, she refused to let the Exercises disappear. Carrying a wooden cross, she walked thousands of kilometers through northern Argentina and reached Buenos Aires barefoot, where in 1795 she founded the Santa Casa de Ejercicios Espirituales, open freely to rich and poor alike. She died in Buenos Aires on March 7, 1799, and is buried in the Basilica of Our Lady of Pity. She was beatified in Santiago del Estero in 2016, and Pope Francis canonized her in Rome on February 11, 2024.

Her feast on March 7, the anniversary of her death, is celebrated with Masses, pilgrimages and baptisms in her hometown of Villa Silípica, in Santiago del Estero and in Buenos Aires. The Santa Casa de Ejercicios she founded still stands in Buenos Aires.

Argentina's bishops have called her "Spiritual Mother of the Homeland". Many women see in her an example of courage and faith, and her feast falls right before International Women's Day.